


Speechless

by Antilocapra



Category: HLVRAI - Fandom, Half-Life VR but the AI is Self-Aware - Fandom
Genre: Blood and Gore, M/M, Mute!Gordon, Pre-Relationship, loss of speech
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:27:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29508999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antilocapra/pseuds/Antilocapra
Summary: It took a ridiculously long time for the rest of the Science Team to realize that Gordon had lost the ability to talk.In their defense, though, it took him quite a while to notice himself.
Relationships: Benrey/Gordon Freeman
Comments: 37
Kudos: 204





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Half-Life Gordon Freeman being interpreted as mute is great, but you know what's even better? HLVRAI Gordon Freeman becoming mute partway through Black Mesa, because I love angst and I also want to figure out just how frustrated he can possibly get. This one doesn't have a set endgame, so we can all figure it out as we go along. Comments are always appreciated!

It took a ridiculously long time for the rest of the Science Team to realize that Gordon had lost the ability to talk.

In their defense, though, it took him quite a while to notice himself. 

They had just fought off a group of headcrabs that skittered out of an open doorway as the so-called Science Team moved down a hallway. Inside the room they came out of were the remains of two scientists that looked like something left at the bottom of the ocean to be eaten by fish. Most of their skin was gone, and the muscle was being slowly nibbled away by the headcrabs. The smell of rot and headcrab effluent was atrocious.

Gordon stopped paying attention to the smell when one of the little aliens launched itself at him, sending him flailing as he tried to both block it with his arm and get enough space to shoot it at the same time. The damn thing was too fast, though, and latched onto the front of the HEV suit with its forelegs, the hind-claws scrabbling to push it up toward his face. Absently, he noticed it had acidic green stripes down its back, like some sort of tropical frog.

Just as he got his hand on it he felt the sharp pain of teeth sinking into his neck, and he yelled wordlessly and ripped it away. Tommy shot it in the air like a fucking clay pigeon and it was dead before it hit the ground, leaving a smear of blood on the concrete floor.

“Fucking - shit - how bad is it?” Gordon panted, scrabbling at his neck with his free hand, the other aiming his pistol at the dead alien. The suit glove came away bloody, but it was hard to tell against the black fabric just how much he was bleeding.

“Gordon, I feel normal!” Dr. Coomer exclaimed.

“I don’t!” Gordon yelled, pressing his hand back to the stinging wound. 

“Let - let me see, Mr. Freeman,” Tommy said. He advanced toward Gordon, still holding his pistol straight out in front of him. Gordon made a strangled noise and ducked away from the waving muzzle.

“Tommy! Put the gun down!”

“Oh! Right! Sorry,” Tommy said, not sounding sorry at all.

Gordon tilted his chin so Tommy could duck his head and get a good look at the wound. Tommy made a vague sound and pulled Gordon’s fingers away from his throat.

“It - it doesn’t look too bad,” he said in what was probably supposed to be a reassuring tone. “It’s not very deep, I don’t - it should be okay until we find a med station.”

“It’s not - spurting, or anything?” Gordon asked, and had to swallow thickly after speaking. It felt like something was stuck in his throat, but it was probably a mix of nausea and stress.

“No, it’s barely - it’s hardly even bleeding anymore,” Tommy said.

“Great! Does that mean we can go?” Bubby snapped, already several steps ahead of them down the corridor.

Gordon swapped the gun to his other hand and brought the marginally cleaner glove up to touch his neck. It came away bloody, but only in one spot across two of his fingers.

“Wow, okay, that -” he had to stop and swallow again as his voice went raspy, “that closed up fast. Let’s just…”

His voice gave out and he made a face, then gestured down the corridor with the pistol. 

“Watch where you’re pointing that thing!” Bubby shouted as he darted away down the corridor.

“It wasn’t even…” Gordon’s voice broke awkwardly, and he growled wordlessly and stalked after Bubby and Dr. Coomer. Tommy glanced into the room the headcrabs had come out of, peered at the remains of the scientists, then shrugged and jogged off down the hall as well.

As they moved further down the hallway, Gordon found himself swallowing thickly several times, feeling like there was a ball of food stuck in his throat. But they hadn’t had anything solid to eat all day - he was running on soda and fumes, and maybe it was showing. They should be coming up on another break room soon, though, given the similar layout of different departments in Black Mesa.

There was a crash and a flurry of gunshots from around the corner, and Gordon leaped forward to see what was causing the commotion.

The first thing Gordon saw when he rounded the corner was Benrey standing in the middle of the break room. There were three bodies at his feet, two in white labcoats and one in a security guard uniform, all of them ragdolled into awkward sprawls. Gordon always had a mixed reaction to seeing Benrey after he’d been absent for more than an hour - a combination of being thankful he was in sight instead of causing mischief elsewhere, and being exasperated that he’d have to deal with the annoying security guard again. This time was no different.

The rest of the Science Team had already broken into the soda machine against the far wall, and violent slurping noises filled the room. Next to the soda machine was a snack machine, and Gordon made a beeline for the real food, swapping the pistol for his crowbar in order to smash the vending machine open.

There wasn’t much inside - some bags of corn nuts, the kind of mini pretzels that felt greasy and dusty at the same time, off-brand potato chips, off-brand fruit snacks, and a handful of assorted chocolate bars.

Gordon swiped some of the fruit snacks, chocolate bars, and chips, and turned to make his way over to one of the upright tables (as opposed to the several overturned tables) when Benrey stepped in front of him. Gordon staggered and juggled his armful of snacks, struggling not to drop anything.

“You stealing?” Benrey asked.

Gordon was not in the mood. Sometimes he could play along with Benrey’s jackassery and give as good as he got, but his neck hurt, his throat hurt, he was tired and grouchy and he didn’t want to deal with this.

Instead, he leveled his best unimpressed glare at Benrey, then very slowly turned and stared at the three scientists crouching over their hoard of pilfered soda, before looking back at Benrey and raising his eyebrows.

“That’s different. They’ve, uh, they’ve got their passports, so, s’okay.”

“How -” Gordon started to say, but it came out so thin and raspy that he gulped back the rest of his incredulous question.

Benrey got it anyway. “If you have your passport you can take whatever you want, because, uh, you’re meant to be here. But if you don’t have it you, uh, you might be a criminal, or uh, a thief here for stealing. So I gotta check. Are you stealing those?”

He pointed at the bundle of snacks in Gordon’s arms. Gordon swallowed through the lump in his throat, coughed out a ragged “No,” and shoved past Benrey. He dumped the pile of gas-station-sized bags onto the table, grabbed one of the chocolate bars, and turned around just as Benrey followed him and opened his mouth to keep harassing him.

“Hey -” was all Benrey was able to get out before Gordon shoved the chocolate bar between his teeth.

Benrey blinked at Gordon, then bit through the bar, chewing it up wrapper and all and catching the other half before it could fall to the ground. Gordon just shook his head and turned back to his stash, snagging a chair off the floor and setting it upright before plopping into it with a sigh. The plastic creaked under the weight of the HEV suit, and Gordon really hoped it didn’t break, because the others would never let him live it down.

He worked his way methodically through the crinkly bags, his gloves shedding flakes of dried blood that stuck to the empty wrappers, the table, and probably Gordon’s face. Whatever. They were all disgusting at this point anyway.

It was a little hard to swallow the drier stuff like the potato chips and corn nuts, so Gordon gave in and grabbed one of the leftover sodas to wash things down, and that seemed to help. His throat didn’t really _hurt_ , per se, it was just uncomfortable, and felt weird. Kind of numb and tingly, especially when he tried to cough a little to clear his throat. He should probably clean the neck wound up, though.

The others were still divvying up the sodas, and Tommy had pulled all the remaining chocolate bars and was adding those to each pile of cans. Gordon had no idea how any of them even had teeth anymore. 

“Hello, Gordon!” Dr. Coomer said cheerfully as Gordon passed by on his way to the break room restrooms, and he seemed satisfied when Gordon just waved a hand at him.

In the restroom, the overhead lights were horrifically bright, casting ugly shadows under Gordon’s eyes and jaw. He grimaced at his reflection and turned on the water, figuring he should probably wash his hands first. Or the gloves of the HEV suit, rather, which were covering his hands, and had been for days now, and what if that was all he ever really felt again? What if the muggy inside of the HEV suit was the only physical contact his future held? 

It took a solid sixty seconds of scrubbing before the water running down the drain lightened to a brackish pink, then flaky gray as the underlying dirt began to come free from beneath the freshly-dried blood. Gordon scrubbed for another few minutes, replenishing handfuls of the terrible foamy soap at a time, until eventually the water ran mostly clear. He wasn’t sure it could ever be completely clean. He wasn’t sure _he_ would ever be completely clean.

Finally he shook the gloves dry and patted them off with the flimsy brown paper towels that seemed to be standard for every workplace restroom in the world. They weren’t good at absorbing water, but they were all Gordon had, so he pulled a handful out of the nearest dispenser and held them under the sink faucet until they were dark and dripping wet. Then he set about patting down his throat and the collar of the HEV suit, which had a lot of blood soaked into it.

When he had gotten most of the blood off, Gordon tilted his chin and leaned over the counter, angling his glasses down his nose so he could see his throat. It was an anticlimactically small injury - a section of torn skin half the size of a plastic water bottle’s cap. Most of the skin had gummed itself back into place with congealed blood, but the cleaning had opened up one spot, and a thin trickle of blood was making its way slowly down the column of Gordon’s throat. He grimaced and dabbed at it with the handful of paper towels, but the waterlogged paper just diluted the blood and spread it faster. Gordon dropped the wad onto the counter with a wet thwap and yanked another few sections of paper towel out of the closest dispenser before quickly shoving them against his neck to catch the blood before it reached the HEV suit’s collar again.

“Hey, are you stealing those?”

Gordon looked up and glared at Benrey’s reflection in the mirror. He refused to turn around and engage, instead choosing to remain haughtily silent as he waited for the bleeding to stop so he could try to find a bandage at the nearest med station. He probably should have done that first, but honestly, he’s never been big on planning ahead.

“It looks like you’re stealing, you, uhhhhh, you stealer,” Benrey continued, taking a few more steps onto the tile floor. Gordon had picked a sink station away from the doorway for a reason, but Benrey sidled up to him anyway, glancing critically down at the wads of wet and bloody paper towels littering the countertop. “Didja pay for these? Huh?”

Gordon tried to say “they’re free, dumbass,” but as soon as he went to speak, his throat closed up completely and he dissolved into a near-silent coughing fit, his chest and throat constricting convulsively. He wheezed over the sink, elbows on the counter, then straightened up slowly and pulled the dry paper towels away from his neck. They peeled off easily, and underneath his skin was reddened from the pressure, but the bleeding had stopped. 

“What happened to your neck?” Benrey said, and he almost sounded concerned.

“Headcrab,” Gordon tried to say, but again, before he could get a sound out, his throat seized up and he was reduced to painful wheezing until the muscle convulsions relaxed.

“Are you, uh, are you dying or something?”

Gordon looked up with watering eyes from his position leaning over the sink again, elbows planted firmly on the counter. Benrey appeared to be unsettled, his dull gaze darting between the bloody paper towels and Gordon himself. He had taken a step toward Gordon, but as soon as their eyes connected in the mirror, Benrey retreated a few steps, shoving his hands into his pockets. 

“You’re - you gotta tell me if you’re dying so I can, uh, put it in your file. Very important. Gotta follow, uh, proper workplace death procedures.”

What the _fuck_? Gordon’s wheezing increased, but this time it was in laughter. He ducked his head and put his hands over his face, cackling silently into his palms. He wanted to ask if Benrey had been filling out the proper paperwork for all the people he himself had been killing, but apparently talking wasn’t a good idea right now, so it would have to wait.

“Y- uh, answer the question, please? Are you dying? It’s not that hard, I can -”

Gordon saw the flash of metal out of the corner of his eye and whipped his head up. Benrey had pulled his gun out and was wiggling it in what he probably thought was a helpful way in Gordon’s direction. What the _fuck_. Gordon jerked away from him, banging his hip against the counter in his mad scramble to get away from the threat. But when he opened his mouth to yell at Benrey, nothing came out.

Gordon’s brain short-circuited. He stumbled to a halt in the middle of the bathroom floor, one hand held palm-out at Benrey, the other reaching out to catch himself against one of the toilet stall doors. He knew he was staring straight ahead with a dumb look on his face, but he was too focused on trying to force sound out of his throat to care.

“Whuh - don’t run away, I’m just trying to help,” Benrey muttered, holstering his gun. Then he seemed to realize something was wrong and frowned at Gordon, who had moved one hand to his throat. He could breathe, he could swallow, he could feel his throat working - he just _couldn’t make a sound_. Panicking, he pushed past Benrey and stared wildly into the mirror. Nothing looked different - his neck hadn’t started bleeding again, there were no new marks, he couldn’t - he didn’t - _why couldn’t he talk_?

Gordon turned to Benrey and flailed at him, gesticulating wildly. Benrey leaned back and stared at him with obvious discomfort. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asked, and Gordon _didn’t know_.


	2. Chapter 2

When Gordon stumbled back into the breakroom, the three scientists had somehow managed to demolish their piles of soda and candy, and were deeply engaged in some sort of chair-based balancing game. Bubby and Tommy were carefully stacking chairs, and Dr. Coomer was perched on the top like an eagle surveying its domain.

“Hello, Gordon!” he said as soon as Gordon stepped into the room.

Gordon went to respond automatically, but when he opened his mouth and tried to make a sound he _felt_ something in his throat seize up. He was able to keep it from turning into a coughing fit by relaxing his jaw and throat muscles right away, but that meant he was standing still with his mouth open like a fish - and that, of course, was a target for ridicule by the rest of the Science Team.

And they did not disappoint. 

“What are you, a bird feeder or something?” Bubby was the first to go, and his taunt obviously suffered from being rushed out of the gate. 3/10, needs workshopping.

“Nonsense!” Dr. Coomer exclaimed from the top of his teetering throne. “Our dear friend Gordon is surely giving us an impromptu impersonation of _The Scream_ , the popular name given to a composition created by Norwegian Expressionist artist Edvard Munch in 1893. The original German title given by Munch to his work was _Der Schrei der Natur (The Scream of Nature)_ , and the Norwegian title is _Skrik (Shriek)_. The agonized face in the - hello, Gordon!”

“O-oh!” Tommy exclaimed, still holding a chair, and for a moment Gordon thought he’d gotten it - but then he continued on entirely the wrong track. “I think Mr. Freeman is - is playing charades! How - how many words, Mr. Freeman?”

Gordon flipped him off with both hands.

“Two - two words, okay. First word, um -”

“Nonsense, Tommy!” Dr. Coomer hopped down from the stack of chairs and it immediately collapsed behind him with a horrible clattering crash, some individual chairs bouncing as far as the emptied vending machines. Bubby threw his hands up, then stalked over to a loose pile of aluminum cans and started stomping on them. 

“We don’t have time for games,” Dr. Coomer continued. “If we stop now, we won’t get to the Lambda Lab for sixteen days!”

“O-oh wow, we should get moving then,” Tommy said, turning toward the door. “How far are we if - if we leave now?”

“If we leave now, we can make it to the Lambda Lab in three hours!”

“That sounds great!” Tommy said, and off they went, a herd of cats galloping into the hallway, leaving Gordon standing alone in the break room, arms held out from his sides in a “what the fuck” pose.

“Hey, are you, uh, you coming?”

Right, he wasn’t alone. Of course he wasn’t alone. Gordon looked over at Benrey, who had paused halfway to the door. For a moment he considered trying again to get Benrey to understand what had happened, but he quickly decided against it. Benrey had seen Gordon go from kind of being able to talk to not being able to push a word out of his throat within a few minutes - if he didn’t understand the situation from seeing it firsthand, no amount of pantomime from Gordon now was going to explain it to him.

So instead he just flapped his hand at Benrey and walked past him, pulling out his crowbar and heading down the hall after the others. He heard Benrey give an irritated huff behind him and mutter something too low for him to interpret - but he could also hear footsteps, so at least Benrey was actually following them this time.

Gordon needed a med station for his headache, if nothing else.

It only took a few more turns before he spotted one, and Gordon immediately jogged down the side corridor toward the heavenly glow of the scarlet cross. But when he jammed his hand into the port, the HEV suit made a chiming noise. 

“No major injuries detected,” the suit’s tinny robotic voice said quietly. “Do you wish to proceed?”

No major injuries? What the _fuck_ , how is this not a major injury? He _can’t talk_.

Gordon squeezed his hand inside the port in acknowledgement and the med station hummed to life. Quickly, the aches of pulled muscles and strained joints faded, and the skin on his neck tingled as the headcrab bite healed over. But there was no sensation from inside his throat, where he knew something was wrong, where the real issue was. He tried to get a second dose from the med station, but it chirped at him. According to the computer, there was nothing else to fix.

Gordon stepped back and flexed his hand before pressing it to his throat, running his fingers across unblemished skin. Okay, fine. He took a breath and tried to say “I hate you” to the cheerful med box, but again, his voice was trapped in his throat, and he had to swallow to get the muscle to relax. 

Well, shit. This sucked.

Gordon turned around and jerked backward, because Benrey was standing _right_ there. _Again_. 

“Hey, what’s your deal?” Benrey gestured at the med station over Gordon’s shoulder. “No juice left for your friends, or your best friend Benrey? Maybe I’m hurt, huh? Maybe I got...eaten...and now I need, uh, need healing?”

Gordon shook his head and pushed past Benrey, which was a tight squeeze in the narrow alcove. Benrey yelled monotone complaints at him as he stalked on down the main hallway. Gordon didn’t care - if Benrey was actually hurt, he could use the med station himself. Gordon had barely used up ten percent of its capacity, there was plenty of “juice” left.

It wasn’t long before he ran back into the other three scientists, who were packed around a doorway, green light emanating from the next room. Apparently they’d found another storage area for the mysterious green goop. Why did Black Mesa need so much of this shit, anyway? What were they using it for? Was it conductive? Was it radioactive? Gordon wished he’d asked Tommy for his conclusions after he’d tested the viscosity, but they’d been in a bit of a rush.

Granted, they’d been in a bit of a rush ever since the Resonance Cascade, so that wasn’t much of an excuse. 

“More green slime!” Dr. Coomer exclaimed. “Oh dear, I’m terribly allergic!” 

“I still have some Epi-pens,” Bubby called back from where he had already trotted ahead. “Just let me know if you need one. I’d love the opportunity to stab you.” 

“Ah, Professor Bubby, you say the sweetest things!”

“Doctor,” Bubby barked.

“Professor,” Dr. Coomer said cheerfully, following after him. Tommy leaped across the narrow culvert of glowing goop to bound down the other side of the corridor like the goddamn gazelle he was. Gordon shook his head and started after them.

He only got three steps before something wrapped around his shoulders, then tightened around his neck, and Gordon had a single hysterical moment to wonder what the hell was up with weird alien creatures and their fixation on his throat today before he was being yanked up toward the ceiling.

Gordon kicked wildly and opened his mouth, but - of course - no sound came out. He had gotten his right hand in between the “rope” and his neck, so all his weight wasn’t hanging off his head, but that meant that he had to reach across his body with his left hand to get to a weapon. The gun was too far, he wouldn’t be able to reach it easily, but the crowbar - maybe he could reach the crowbar -

Just as his fingers teased the crowbar loose from its loops the barnacle jerked, and Gordon’s ascent slowed. He hoped the weight of the HEV suit was slowing it down, but maybe it was just trying to figure out how best to eat him while he was inside a glorified tin can. He tugged on the crowbar, ready to swing it up and try to hit the barnacle itself, but the barnacle jolted him once more and the crowbar spun out of Gordon’s fumbling grip, falling end over end to the corridor below. It landed with a clang, then bounced several times, resulting in what could only be defined as "an unholy racket."

“Oh, hey,” Benrey said from below. “Are you - do we like those now?”

“Look out, Gordon!” Dr. Coomer’s voice bounced up the walls toward the high ceiling.

Then Gordon was falling, with the crack of a gunshot echoing in his ears.

He hit the ground with a crash of metal as the HEV suit absorbed the impact. Gordon still staggered and fell over to land on his ass. His balance was off, okay? He was still trying to catch his breath, wheezing in great gulps of air as the three scientists made their way back up the corridor to converge on him.

“That’s - you should be careful, Mr. Freeman!” Tommy yelled from across the culvert of green sludge. His gun was still out - Gordon assumed he’d been the one to shoot the barnacle and cut him loose.

“Look, Gordon! Ropes!” Dr. Coomer exclaimed. “We can use these to - hello, Gordon!”

“Are you - are we friends with those, now?” Benrey said, and Gordon hauled himself to his feet and staggered around to glare at him. “Did you - you weren’t yelling or anything, so why -”

Gordon advanced on him, furiously jabbing Benrey in the chest with one finger as he flailed his other hand - gesturing at himself, his throat, Benrey, his mouth, Benrey again, helplessly mouthing curses at him the whole time. Benrey actually retreated a few hasty steps, looking nonplussed, so that made Gordon feel a bit better.

“Why didn’t you say something, Gordon?” Dr. Coomer asked. 

Gordon whipped around and bellowed “ _Because I can’t!_ ” - or tried to. No sound emerged from his mouth, and this time he didn’t even dissolve into coughing - there was just nothing there, leaving him mouthing silent words into empty air, pointing at his mouth, teeth clicking on negative space.

“What's wrong?” Bubby said derisively. “Cat got your tongue?”

“Whuh? That’s a thing?” Benrey grabbed Gordon’s shoulder and spun him around before jamming his dirty-ass fingers into Gordon’s mouth and pulling his jaw down to peer inside. 

Gordon hauled back and punched him.

“No cats in there. _Lame_ ,” Benrey groaned from the ground, as Gordon tried to scrape his tongue off with his teeth and spit the gun-oil-and-blood taste of Benrey’s fingers out of his mouth.

“It’s a figure of speech,” Tommy called from across the goop. Gordon had no idea why he was still over there - he could almost step across if he wanted to. The green slime wasn’t even halfway up the sloped sides of the culvert. “Is he - are you okay, Mr. Freeman?”

Ah, a proper yes or no question. Gordon could get behind that. He turned toward Tommy and shook his head back and forth, the movements as slow and obvious as he could make them.

“Oh, okay,” Tommy said, then he backed up a few steps and lunged across the culvert, slamming into Benrey and knocking him to the ground again.

“Oops, sorry Benrey!”

“Bro, I _just_ got up!”

“Good thing you’re wearing your helmet, Boper!” Dr. Coomer said cheerfully. Benrey grumbled and dragged himself back to his feet again as Tommy leaned close to Gordon and stared at him.

Now Gordon was the one leaning away. Tommy wasn’t pointing his gun at Gordon, for once, but he still had a weirdly intense look on his face.

“Where’s your - did you find a med station for your - for the bite on your neck?”

Gordon nodded.

“Okay,” Tommy said, “that’s good! So why can’t you talk?”

Gordon gave him an exaggerated shrug and widened his eyes to look as clueless as possible, because why the fuck were they asking him when he obviously had _no fucking clue_ what was going on?

Bubby wandered up, apparently interested now that there was a mystery. “Did you use the med station wrong?”

Gordon glared at him and shook his head. 

“This started earlier, didn’t it, Gordon?” Dr. Coomer said. “If I recall correctly, you tried to tell us when we were engaged in our exciting game of ‘King of the Chair Tower.’”

Gordon nodded gratefully. At least someone had been paying attention.

“I thought it was ‘Chair Jenga,’” Tommy said, sounding a bit put out.

“You told me it was ‘3D Tetris,’ but the only shape available was ‘chair,’” Bubby said accusingly.

“Ah, good old ‘King of the 3D Jenga Tetris Chair Tower!’” Dr. Coomer sighed.

Gordon clapped his hands loudly, and pointed to himself when they turned to look at him.

“Oh, right, sorry Mr. Freeman,” Tommy said sheepishly. “When did - um - do you - do you think it has something to do with the headcrab that bit you?”

 _YES, you idiot._ Gordon nodded sharply. 

“Oh gosh, I wish we - we should have kept it,” Tommy said. “Maybe it was different somehow.”

 _Yes it fucking was_ \- Tommy saw it, he had to have seen it, he was the one who had shot the damn thing! Did he seriously not notice that it had bright green stripes on its back?

“Yo, you - you want me to go get it?” Benrey asked, and Tommy beamed at him.

“Do you mind? It might be like a rattlesnake or something, and - and we can get a cure from it!”

Oh, fuck no, they were not injecting homemade headcrab antivenom into Gordon to try to fix his voice. No way.

“Sure, s’not that far,” Benrey said, and meandered through the doorway and back the way they came.

Great. If he kept up that pace, it would take him hours to find the damn thing, and it probably would have been eaten by then anyway.

Gordon sighed and brought his hands up under his glasses to rub at his eyes.

“Are you - is anything else wrong, Mr. Freeman?” Tommy asked.

Gordon resettled his glasses and shook his head wearily. Then he bent to scoop up his forgotten crowbar and gestured down the hallway - they might as well keep moving. Who knew when Benrey would be back, and if he’d even have the headcrab when he returned. By the time he reached it, he might not even remember what he’d turned around for.

“Nonsense, Gordon,” Dr. Coomer said. “We have to wait for our good friend Bopple!”

“What? No,” Bubby said, voicing Gordon’s thoughts. “He’ll take forever, let’s just get moving.”

“Here you go,” Benrey said from behind Gordon. Gordon twitched and stepped aside to stare at him. He didn’t look like he’d just been running, but he would have had to sprint there and back to be able to grab the headcrab he was holding - and hang on, even then it was impossible that he could have moved that quick. Unless he just picked up the first one he saw...but no, after squinting at it Gordon saw the bright green stripes, along with the bullet hole he’d watched Tommy put in it earlier. It was definitely the same headcrab. How the hell -

“How in the hell did you get it so fast?” Bubby said aggressively, and okay, that was getting a bit creepy. Gordon hated the thought that the person he was most similar to here was _Bubby_.

Benrey looked down at the creature dangling loosely from his hand and shrugged. He held it out toward Tommy and waggled it at him, making the legs and claw-things flop around like a loose puppet. “You want it?”

“Y-yeah, thanks,” Tommy said, and took it from him with both hands, turning it around to look at the stripes on its back, then flipping it over to peer at the jaws. Dr. Coomer leaned in to join the inspection, and Bubby loomed behind him as best he could.

“This unique coloration appears to be similar to the ‘warning colors’ of poisonous creatures found here on Earth,” Dr. Coomer said. 

“It looks like a tropical frog,” Bubby said.

“Exactly, Professor!”

“ _Doctor_ -”

“Hello, Gordon!” 

Gordon waved wearily. This wasn’t giving him any new information, but at least it was bringing the others up to speed. Hopefully with four heads rather than one, they could think of something that would help. (And no, he didn’t include Benrey in the think-tank.)

“Benrey, what are you eating?” Tommy said suddenly.

Benrey looked up guiltily at Tommy’s question, his mouth working faster before he swallowed and straightened up and said “Uh...nothing?”

“Okay,” Tommy said, and if he just accepted that, Gordon was going to - well, not _scream_ , obviously, but he'd do _something_. Luckily, Tommy continued, “So what did you just finish eating? Because it looks like there’s a, um, a bite taken out of this.” He waggled the headcrab toward Benrey, who looked shifty as its little claws flopped in front of his face.

“Uhhhhhhh I was just, uh, testing it, just doing some, uh, experimentalation.”

“Experimentation?” Tommy asked. 

Benrey nodded. “Yeah, that.”

Dr. Coomer leaned forward, his eyes bright. “Fascinating! What did it taste like?”

Benrey smacked his lips. “S’uh, tingly. Can’t feel my teeth.”

“Can you _normally_ feel your teeth?” Bubby asked.

“Yeah, ‘course,” Benrey shrugged. “Can’t you?”

Gordon was losing his mind. He was going insane, and soon no one would be able to tell the difference between him and these clowns, these absolute buffoons and their parodies of science. He snapped his fingers sharply in the air over the headcrab, then pointed from it to his throat, then Benrey’s mouth, then his own throat, then opened his mouth and shaped silent words.

“Yo, you want me to bite your neck? That’s kinda kinky,” Benrey said, and Gordon spun around, raised the crowbar, and began whacking Benrey around his head and shoulders. Benrey didn’t even react that time, just stood still and let the metal bar thump against his shoulder and clang off his helmet.

“Hey, could you stop that? S’not nice, please.”

“Gordon, look out! It’s Benrey!” Dr. Coomer exclaimed, and sent Benrey flying across the room with a single punch. 

Gordon burst out laughing, and it took him a moment to realize his laughter was completely silent now, just wheezy little breaths of air as his shoulders shook. At least whatever was blocking his throat seemed to have calmed down, and now instead of going into a coughing fit when he tried to make a noise, he would just get no response. He could work with that. It was better than hacking up a lung every time he tried to talk.

He almost had control of himself when he heard Benrey’s toneless complaint of “ _owwwww_ ” from where he’d landed in a ragdoll heap against the wall, and that was it, Gordon was gone again. He ended up bent over with his hands on his knees, one still fisted around the crowbar, feeling absolutely hysterical.

By the time Gordon straightened up, he was loopy and exhausted. He swept his free hand back to smooth over his hair, knowing he’d have to redo his ponytail soon but not wanting to deal with it right now. Benrey had rejoined them at some point during Gordon’s laughing fit, and his whole head followed the movement of Gordon’s hand over his hair. Weirdo.

“Are - are you good, Mr. Freeman?” Tommy’s voice had actual concern in it, which was nice.

Gordon hooked the crowbar back into its strap and held his hand out flat, then wiggled it. _So-so_.

Tommy blinked at his hand, then grinned up at him. “Do - do you know sign language, Mr. Freeman?”

Gordon frowned, then shook his head.

“That’s okay! I can - I can teach you. I know lots of signs, and then you can keep talking to us!”

That was...actually really sweet. But also, how long did they think his voice would be affected for? Gordon looked at Benrey and bared his teeth, pointing at his incisors, then at Benrey, and then made a shrugging gesture. 

And Benrey, for once in his annoying life, got the message. “Uh, no, my teeth feel fine now.”

Gordon sighed, then looked over at Tommy and Dr. Coomer and raised his eyebrows as he tapped his wrist, then pointed at his throat and made the same questioning shrug. How long did they think this would last?

“Dr. Freeman, there’s no way to know just how long this variant of headcrab will affect your vocal abilities,” Dr. Coomer said. “We’ll just have to play it by ear. Now hurry up! If we leave now, we’ll make it to the Lambda Lab in six hours!”

“Oh, of course!” Tommy exclaimed. “We’re going to the Lambda Lab! I have - there’s someone there who might be able to help if we give him this!” Then he took off too, still carrying the flopping headcrab. Gordon really hoped it didn’t have any venom or poison or whatever in its claws, because the way Tommy was carrying it, those things were going to end up buried in someone. It was only a matter of time.

“Hey, you’re being extra slow today,” Benrey said as he walked past Gordon. “And mean. Extra slow and extra mean. You’re just a big, mean, slow, extra -”

Actually, Gordon realized, he'd lied to Tommy. He _did_ know a few words in sign language, and one of them was easy to understand even if you spoke no sign at all. Gordon held up his middle finger, then rotated his wrist to point the finger at Benrey, and mouthed the meaning of the sign as he stalked past him.

 _Fuck you_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come shout at me on tumblr @antilocaprine


End file.
